Last night after a nice dinner out with my wife and mother-in-law, I took the Vista 508 (80mm f/5) out for a quick dessert of ancient photons. I have nicked named the 508, Little Blue Peep or just LBP. 8^) LBP is sporting a new Televue Telepod mount in place of the old Bogen fluid pan head. I leave the rear ring completely loose so I can side LBP far forward in the remaining forward ring so as to get the balance 'just right'. Needless to say, the Telepod is a joy compared to the pan head.
My condo opens to a pool area which has two flood lights and those cute little lighted walkway garden stakes. I do not know the limiting magnitude but it was difficult to make out the 5 stars of Lyra other than Vega. Only a few more years and some help from the stock market and these reports will be coming from Arizona or New Mexico... but I digress.
I popped in a Meade 1.25" diagonal and an old University Optics 20mm wide scan with a crack near the edge of the field lens. Don't ask why I don't throw the eyepiece in the trash or use it as a paperwieght. I guess it's all the pleasure that eyepiece gave me when it was my 'premium eyepiece' and I used it with my f/6.3 20cm LX200 in the early 90's. Plus it makes a great dust plug for LBP. 8^)
I moved the scope to Antares and focused. The Telepod is REALLY nice! Hmm... What do I see? Einstein's Cross? A sign from the heavens for Christians? A celestial footnote marker perhaps? I removed the 20mm and popped in a 15mm Ultrascopic... that cross of light is still there... I removed the diagonal and inserted an "Apogee" (thats what the label says) 1.25" diagonal. Ah! A round'ish airy disc! Eggggcellent! Guess I'll take the Meade apart and see if I can make it worse, or for me, at least show a Star of David. 8^)
Hmm... at 20x there was no sign of Antares' companion. 8^D I inserted a Takahashi 4mm ortho for it's first light yeilding 100x. Yes the eye relief is tight. But I don't wear glasses to view through the eyepiece. Hmm... the view was good. But with the first diffraction ring in multiple arcs and jumping about, I saw no companion... well darn!
So I made my way over to Epsilon Lyrae. Of course at 20x I had two stars. But could LBP give me four? Back in went the 4mm. Well I'll be... The northern most pair (eta 1)showed it's north-south orientation while the other in fleeting moments showed it's east to west orientation but only in the best of moments (which was not saying much).
Finally, remembering what Geoff said about planetaries punching though light pollution, I turned LBP on to M57. At 20x, and knowing exactly where to look, sure enough there was a ghostly teeny tiny glow barely visible above the orange glow of the skies over Orange County. I popped in the Tak 4mm and M57 was easy to see. No color. No central hole. No structure whatsoever. But no doubt a round'ish patch of faint light.
Satiated on ancient photons and feeling drowsy from the meal, LBP and I retreated indoors as the June marine layer started to cloud us over.